“There is a need to join the dots in the arable sector and work as a cohesive unit.
“Defining the priorities at the heart of that has to be maximising productivity, value and resilience and tie that in with environmental and social responsibility.”
The speed of change has been dramatic with technology the key driver.
On-farm innovation will be most important for arable farmers to stay relevant.
“Short term fads, just ignore, they’re just a distraction,” she said.
“Trends, keep a careful watch, for example plants for protein.
“Can New Zealand be in that space and be competitive and when do you jump into that space.”
Global food movements including healthy, natural, sustainably produced, traceable, environmentally and socially responsible issues farmers could ignore at their peril.
“But share knowledge, work collaboratively with each other, not against each other, and be prepared to change.
“You can’t spend time being defensive on status quo. You’ll be on a hiding to nothing.
“Think of yourself as a food producer and you are in the business of delivering food.
“Don’t miss opportunities,” Stewart said.
FAR general manager Ivan Lawrie said new cropportunities are a minefield.
“There’s a lot coming at us so it’s to look at what’s doable in a short period of time with available funds and applicable to our regions.
“The global movement of plant-based food is not a fad, it’s a real thing.
“This presents opportunities for us on how we can meet new markets, consumer demand, product diversifications and biodiversity within integrated farm systems.”
Lawrie questioned new crops or new products from existing crops.
“We don’t want to replicate or reinvent the wheel but can we create new markets for them.
“Do we need to look at those who can afford or want to afford $14 for a packet of spaghetti?”
Capturing the value of local opportunity in eat-NZ initiatives is key going forward.
Lawrie said high-quality and speciality grains for the milling industry and high oleic acid sunflower production have emerged as promising options and FAR is working with the industry to increase the area sown in some of these crops.
“A series of factors is changing the way we look at farming systems into the future and FAR, along with government and private entities, is involved in a series of projects at regional and national level to find new, sustainable and profitable options for land use.
“Some of these changes may involve the introduction of new crops, others aim to extract value from existing crops while others involve a whole change of the system to better suit soil types or the development of totally new, locally based industries.”
Lawrie said identifying FAR’s role in the changes is challenging.
“Previous efforts at developing new markets have had mixed success, often not growing market value, simply replacing one industry player for another without providing benefits to growers.
“A good starting point has been to identify market needs and where there is already a demand for a value-add product that can either be exported or used in the domestic market as a NZ grown component of food products.”
Two projects being funded by the Primary Industries Ministry are working at regional and national level.
The alternative crops for Wairarapa and the food products for the future projects aim to deliver crops that could be grown to meet those needs, Lawrie said.
